Introduction

St. Thomas Aquinas (AKA Thomas of Aquin or Aquino) (c. 1225 - 1274) was an
Italian philosopher and theologian of the Medieval period. He was the foremost
classical proponent of natural theology at the peak of Scholasticism in Europe, and
the founder of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology.

The philosophy of Aquinas has exerted enormous influence on subsequent Christian

theology, especially that of the Roman Catholic Church, but also Western philosophy
in general. His most important and enduring works are the "Summa Theologica", in
which he expounds his systematic theology of the "quinquae viae" (the five proofs of
the existence of God), and the "Summa Contra Gentiles".

Life
Aquinas was born around 1225 to a noble family in the small town of Roccasecca, near
Aquino, Italy, in what was then the Kingdom of Sicily. His father was Count Landulph
and his mother was Theodora, Countess of Theate. His uncle, Sinibald, was abbot
of the original Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino and Aquinas was expected to
follow his uncle into that position. At the age of 5, Aquinas began his early education
at a monastery, and at the age of 16 he continued his studies at the University of
Naples.

At Naples, Aquinas soon began to veer towards the Dominican Order, much to the
deep chagrin of his family (who at one point seized and held him captive in an attempt
to force him to toe the family line). However, after the intervention of Pope Innocent
IV, he became a Dominican monk in 1242.

In 1244, the promising young Aquinas was sent to study under Albertus Magnus in
Cologne and then in Paris, where he distinguished himself in arguments against
the University's celebrated champion Guillaume de St Amour (c. 1200 - 1272).
Having graduated as a bachelor of theology in 1248, he returned to Cologne as second
lecturer and magister studentium and began his literary activity and public life.

In 1256 Aquinas began many years of travel and lecturing on theology throughout
France and Italy, along with his friend St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1221 - 1274).
During this period, he was often called upon to advise the reigning pontiff and the
French King Louis VIII on affairs of state, and to represent the Dominican Order in
meetings and discussions. Despite preaching every day, he found time to write homilies,
disputations and lectures, and continued to work diligently on his great literary work, the
"Summa Theologica".

Aquinas was characterized as a humble, simple, peace-loving man, given to

contemplation, and a lover of poetry. He always maintained self-control and won
over his opponents by his personality and great learning. There were various reports
by friars and monks of minor miracles concerning Aquinas (ranging from levitation to
voices from Heaven). He refused to participate in mortification of the flesh, which as
a Dominican Friar he was supposed to observe. He also refused out of hand such
prestigious positions as Archbishop of Naples and Abbot of Monte Cassino
(although he was persuaded back to the University of Naples in 1272).

In 1270, the Bishop of Paris issued an edict condemning a number of teachings

derived from Aristotle or from Arabic philosophers such as Averroës which were then
current at the university, and the teachings of Aquinas were among those targeted. The
Dominican Order prudently moved him to Italy while the investigations proceeded in
Paris. In 1274, en route to attend the Second Council of Lyons to attempt to settle the
differences between the Greek and Latin churches, Aquinas fell ill and eventually died at
the nearby Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova.

In 1277, three years after Aquinas' death, the Bishop of Paris and the Bishop of Oxford
issued another, more detailed, edict which condemned a series of Thomas's theses as
heretical, on the grounds of the orthodox Augustinian theology which considered
human reason inadequate to understand the will of God. As a result of this
condemnation, Aquinas was excommunicated posthumously (a landmark in the
history of medieval philosophy and theology), and it took many years for his reputation
to recover from this censure.

In 1324, fifty years after Thomas Aquinas' death, Pope John XXII in Avignon
pronounced him a saint of the Catholic church, and his theology began its rise to
prestige. In 1568, he was named a Doctor of the Church. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII
stated that Aquinas' theology was a definitive exposition of Catholic doctrine, and
directed clergy to take the teachings of Aquinas as the basis of their theological
positions. Today, he is considered by many Catholics to be the Catholic church's
greatest theologian and philosopher.

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Aquinas was a Christian theologian, but he was also an Aristotelian and an
Empiricist, and he substantially influenced these two streams of Western thought. He
believed that truth becomes known through both natural revelation (certain truths
are available to all people through their human nature and through correct human
reasoning) and supernatural revelation (faith-based knowledge revealed through
scripture), and he was careful to separate these two elements, which he saw as
complementary rather than contradictory in nature. Thus, although one may deduce
the existence of God and His attributes through reason, certain specifics (such as the
Trinity and the Incarnation) may be known only through special revelation and may
not otherwise be deduced.

His two great works are the "Summa Contra Gentiles" (often published in English
under the title "On the Truth of the Catholic Faith"), written between 1258 and
1264, and the "Summa Theologica" ("Compendium of Theology"), written
between 1265 and 1274. The former is a broadly-based philosophical work directed at
non-Christians; the latter is addressed largely to Christians and is more a work of
Christian theology.

Aquinas saw the raw material data of theology as the written scriptures and
traditions of the Catholic church, which were produced by the self-revelation of God
to humans throughout history. Faith and reason are the two primary tools which are
both necessary together for processing this data in order to obtain true knowledge
of God. He believed that God reveals himself through nature, so that rational thinking
and the study of nature is also the study of God (a blend of Aristotelian Greek
philosophy with Christian doctrine).

From his consideration of what God is not, Aquinas proposed five positive
statements about the divine qualities or the nature of God:

 God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or matter
and form.
 God is perfect, lacking nothing.
 God is infinite, and not limited in the ways that created beings are physically,
intellectually, and emotionally limited.
 God is immutable, incapable of change in respect of essence and character.
 God is one, such that God's essence is the same as God's existence.

Aquinas believed that the existence of God is neither self-evident nor beyond proof.
In the "Summa Theologica", he details five rational proofs for the existence of
God, the "quinquae viae" (or the "Five Ways"), some of which are really re-statements
of each other:

 The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu): everything that is moved is
moved by a mover, therefore there is an unmoved mover from whom all
motion proceeds, which is God.
 The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything that is caused is caused
by something else, therefore there must be an uncaused cause of all caused
things, which is God.
 The argument from contingency (ex contingentia): there are contingent
beings in the universe which may either exist or not exist and, as it is impossible
for everything in the universe to be contingent (as something cannot come of
nothing), so there must be a necessary being whose existence is not
contingent on any other being, which is God.
 The argument from degree (ex gradu): there are various degrees of perfection
which may be found throughout the universe, so there must be a pinnacle of
perfection from which lesser degrees of perfection derive, which is God.
 The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all natural
bodies in the world (which are in themselves unintelligent) act towards ends
(which is characteristic of intelligence), therefore there must be an intelligent
being that guides all natural bodies towards their ends, which is God.
Aquinas believed that Jesus Christ was truly divine and not simply a human being or
God merely inhabiting the body of Christ. However, he held that Christ had a truly
rational human soul as well, producing a duality of natures that persisted even after
the Incarnation, and that these two natures existed simultaneously yet
distinguishable in one real human body.

Aquinas defined the four cardinal virtues as prudence, temperance, justice and
fortitude, which he held are natural (revealed in nature) and binding on everyone. In
addition, there are three theological virtues, described as faith, hope and charity,
which are supernatural and are distinct from other virtues in that their object is
God. Furthermore, he distinguished four kinds of law: eternal law (the decree of
God that governs all creation), natural law (human "participation" in eternal law,
which is discovered by reason), human law (the natural law applied by governments to
societies) and divine law (the specially revealed law in the scriptures).

For St. Thomas Aquinas, the goal of human existence is union and eternal
fellowship with God. For those who have experienced salvation and redemption
through Christ while living on earth, a beatific vision will be granted after death in
which a person experiences perfect, unending happiness through comprehending
the very essence of God. During life, an individual's will must be ordered toward right
things (such as charity, peace and holiness), which requires morality in everyday
human choices, a kind of Virtue Ethics. Aquinas was the first to identify the Principle
of Double Effect in ethical decisions, when an otherwise legitimate act (e.g. self-
defense) may also cause an effect one would normally be obliged to avoid (e.g. the
death of another).

St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354 - 430) was an Algerian-Roman philosopher and
theologian of the late Roman / early Medieval period. He is one of the most important
early figures in the development of Western Christianity, and was a major figure in
bringing Christianity to dominance in the previously pagan Roman Empire. He is
often considered the father of orthodox theology and the greatest of the four great
fathers of the Latin Church (along with St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory).

Unlike the later Scholastics who took Aristotle as the classical model to be integrated
into Christian thought, Augustine developed a philosophical and theological system
which employed elements of Plato and Neo-Platonism in support of Christian
orthodoxy. His many works profoundly influenced the medieval worldview.

Life
Aurelius Augustinus (usually known as simply Augustine) was born on 13
November 354 in Tagaste (or Thagaste), a provincial Roman city in Algeria, North
Africa, and he was, by descent, a Berber. His father Patricius was a pagan, but his
mother Monica (or Monnica) was a devout Catholic (and is herself revered as a
Christian saint), so he was raised as a Catholic. At the age of 11, he was sent to school at
Madaurus, an old Numidian town just south of Tagaste, famed both for its schools
and for its pagan influence, where he became very familiar with Latin literature, as
well as pagan beliefs and practices. Later he read the "Hortensius", a dialogue by the
Roman philosopher and politician Cicero, which was largely responsible for sparking his
interest in philosophy.

At the age of 17, he went to Carthage, Tunisia (the metropolis of Roman Africa) to
continue his education in rhetoric, and there he came under the influence of the
controversial Persian religious cult of Manichaeism, much to the despair of his mother.
He lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, including frequent visits to the brothels of
Carthage, and developed a relationship with a young woman named Floria Aemilia,
who would be his concubine for over fifteen years, and who bore him a son,
Adeodatus.

After a year or two teaching grammar back in his hometown, he returned to Carthage
where he spent nine years conducting a school of rhetoric, until, in 383 (at the age of
29), he moved to Rome to teach rhetoric. However, he was disappointed with the
apathetic and crooked Roman schools, and the next year he accepted an appointment
as professor of rhetoric for the imperial court at Milan, a highly visible and influential
academic chair.

During his time at Rome and Milan, he had moved away from Manichaeism, initially
embracing the Skepticism of the New Academy movement. A combination of his own
studies in Neo-Platonism, his reading of an account of the life of Saint Anthony of the
Desert, and the combined influence of his mother, his friend Simplicianus and,
particularly, the influential bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose (338 - 397), gradually
inclined Augustine towards Christianity. In the summer of 386, he officially
converted to Catholic Christianity, abandoned his career in rhetoric, quit his
teaching position in Milan, and gave up any ideas of the society marriage which had
been arranged for him, and devoted himself entirely to serving God, the priesthood
and celibacy. He detailed this spiritual journey in his famous "Confessions", which
became a classic of both Christian theology and world literature.

In 388, he returned to Africa, although his mother died on the way there, and his son
Adeodatus died soon after, leaving him alone in the world, without family. He sold
his patrimony, giving the money to the poor, and converted the family house into a
monastic foundation for himself and a group of friends. In 391, he was ordained a
priest (and later bishop) at Hippo Regius on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and
he became a famous preacher, particularly noted for opposing Manichaeism and
heresies such as Donatism and Pelagianism. He remained in this position at Hippo
until his death in 430, working tirelessly to convert the diverse local racial and religious
groups to the Catholic faith.
Augustine died on 28 August 430, aged 75, during the siege of Hippo by the Germanic
Vandals, who destroyed all of the city except Augustine's cathedral and library. His
body was later moved to Pavia, Italy (or, according to another account, to Cagliari on
the island of Sardinia). Almost throughout his life he had been a lonely, isolated
figure, not attached to any intellectual or academic movement, and without any
university or institutional support for his work. At the time of his death, he was
apparently the only person in his whole town who possessed any books at all.

He was made a saint (patron saint of brewers, printers, sore eyes and theologians) of the
Roman Catholic, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and among the Orthodox he
is known as Blessed Augustine or St. Augustine the Blessed. He is the patron of
the Augustinian religious order (the Catholic monastic order of both men and
women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of Saint
Augustine). In 1298, he was made a pre-eminent Doctor of the Church.

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Augustine wrote over 100 works in Latin, many of them texts on Christian doctrine
and apologetic works against various heresies. He is best known for the
"Confessiones" ("Confessions", a personal account of his early life, completed in
about 397), "De civitate Dei" ("The City of God", consisting of 22 books started in
413 and finished in 426, dealing with God, martyrdom, Jews and other Christian
philosophies) and "De Trinitate" ("On the Trinity", consisting of 15 books written
over the final 30 years of his life, in which he developed the "psychological analogy" of
the Trinity).

In both his philosophical and theological reasoning, he was greatly influenced by

Stoicism, Platonism and Neo-Platonism, particularly the "Enneads" of Plotinus (his
generally favorable view of Neo-Platonic thought contributed to its entrance into the
Christian, and subsequently the European, intellectual tradition). He was also
influenced by the works of the Roman poet Virgil (for his teaching on language),
Cicero (for his teaching on argument) and Aristotle (particularly his "Rhetoric" and
"Poetics").

Augustine argued that Skeptics have no basis for claiming to know that there is no
knowledge, and he believed that genuine human knowledge can be established
with certainty. He believed reason to be a uniquely human cognitive capacity that
comprehends deductive truths and logical necessity. In a proof for existence
similar to one later made famous by Descartes, Augustine claimed "Si fallor, sum" ("If I
am mistaken, I am”). He also adopted a subjective view of time, arguing that time is
nothing in reality but exists only in the human mind’s apprehension of reality, and
that time cannot be infinite because God “created” it.

Augustine struggled to reconcile his beliefs about free will and his belief that humans
are morally responsible for their actions, with his belief that one’s life is
predestined and his belief in original sin (which seems to make human moral
behavior nearly impossible). He held that, because human beings begin with original
sin and are therefore inherently evil (even if, as he believed, evil is not anything real
but merely the absence of good), then the classical attempts to achieve virtue by
discipline, training and reason are all bound to fail, and the redemptive action of
God's grace alone offers hope. He opined that "We are too weak to discover the truth by
reason alone".

In his theological works, Augustine expounded on the concept of original sin (the
guilt of Adam which all human beings inherit) in his works against the Pelagian heretics,
providing an important influence on St. Thomas Aquinas. He helped formulate the
theory of the just war, and advocated the use of force against the Donatist heretics. He
developed doctrines of predestination (the divine foreordaining of all that will ever
happen) and efficacious grace (the idea that God's salvation is granted to a fixed
number of those whom He has already determined to save), which later found eloquent
expression in the works of Reformation theologians such as Martin Luther (1483 -
1546) and John Calvin (1509 - 1564), as well as Cornelius Jansen (1585 - 1638)
during the Counter-Reformation.

Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it
contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason (e.g. he believed
that God created the world simultaneously and that the seven-day creation recorded
in the Bible merely represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in
a physical way). Although he believed that God had chosen the Jews as a special people,
he considered the scattering of Jews by the Roman empire to be a fulfillment of
prophecy, and believed that the Jews would be converted at the end of time. He
associated sexual desire with the sin of Adam, and believed that it was still sinful, even
though the Fall has made it part of human nature.

In "The City of God", he conceived of the church as a heavenly city or kingdom,

ruled by love, which will ultimately triumph over all earthly empires which are self-
indulgent and ruled by pride. He emphasized the church's strict independence from,
and its superiority over, the civil state. Begun in the aftermath of the sacking of
Rome by the Visigoths in 410, it was to some extent written as a defense against those
who blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome, and to restore the confidence of his
fellow Christians.

Judaism, monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews. Judaism is characterized by a
belief in one transcendent God who revealed himself to Abraham, Moses, and the Hebrew prophets and
by a religious life in accordance with Scriptures and rabbinic traditions. Judaism is the complex
phenomenon of a total way of life for the Jewish people, comprising theology, law, and innumerable
cultural traditions.